There was something weird going on.
Brandon felt as if his senses were on full alert, the way they had been when he’d sensed the earthquake that morning well before it had started. He felt edgy and on the cusp of violence, as if his dragon was going to break free once again.
It must be because Liz had left. She would be halfway down the island by now, and sheer distance from her was giving his dragon more power.
He was disconcerted by the shimmer of blue that he thought he had seen around Chen. Had he imagined it? Because even he, with his rudimentary dragon powers, could smell a Pyr when he paid attention, and Chen smelled completely human. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Was that part of the dragon gaining the upper hand?
One thing Brandon knew was that he had to solve this and get to Liz.
All he had to do was get a bit of that powder at Chen’s. Maybe there was some residue trapped in the container he had, enough that Liz could test it. He wasn’t going to open the container and risk losing whatever remained inside. Liz could do it.
The man leaning on his arm was almost a ghost of what Chen had been when Brandon had first met him. He really must be dying. He certainly didn’t have a lot of strength. Brandon was practically carrying him. He felt sorry for his old friend, just fading away without any family or friends beside him.
Well, except Brandon.
How could Sloane suggest that Chen was a Slayer? It was the same as his father making pronouncements about his human friends, wanting control of Brandon’s life. And Sloane was acting like Brandon’s dad, too—just popping up unexpectedly with ideas and demands and plans. Brandon resented that Sloane had tried to influence Liz, and he could have done without Sloane telling her about the baby.
Brandon had wanted to do that himself.
He didn’t blame Liz for believing Sloane’s suspicions. She didn’t know Chen. She didn’t know anything much about the Pyr. And she was understandably angry with him for not telling her the whole truth.
Brandon wished he had. At least she knew some of it, and it had been only a day. He was doing better than his own father.
And he was going to do even better than he had so far.
He slanted a glance at the frail man hanging on to his arm. He must have imagined the blue shimmer that had seemed to dance around the perimeter of Chen’s body. Brandon had caught only the barest glimpse of it, so little that he didn’t trust his eyes. Chen couldn’t be a Slayer, not without smelling like a dragon shifter. That shimmer must have had something to do with that lightbulb exploding. Like the light in it had gone crazy or something.
Still, Brandon couldn’t dismiss his uneasiness.
What was Liz refusing to tell him? Why did she get all sparky when she was angry with him? What was she afraid of?
It took a thousand years for them to get across the street, a thousand anxious years as cars swerved around them and Brandon thought about the time passing. Chen seemed to move more and more slowly, as if he were going to run out of steam in the middle of the road. Brandon again felt uneasy at the idea of leaving him alone.
“Chen, do you have any family or close friends I should call for you? It seems like maybe you should have some company tonight.”
Chen coughed. “No family. All dead. No friends.” He gave Brandon a weak smile. “Just one good friend. It is enough.”
Brandon felt a twinge of guilt. Should he stay with Chen tonight? It would be awful to leave him to die alone, but Brandon really had to pursue Liz.
“You know that powder, Chen?”
“What is it, really?”
Chen gave him a surprisingly sly smile. “Ancient Chinese secret,” he said, and Brandon was startled by his sense that Chen was messing with him. His manner had suddenly changed so much. Chen never made jokes, and he’d spoken both quickly and clearly.
Without an accent.
The look in his eyes had almost been predatory.
And his eyes had shone as they never did.
Brandon’s dragon snarled with new vigor.
“I beg your pardon?” Brandon asked. They stepped onto a path that twisted away from the main road and headed toward the mountains. It wound from one side to the other, making a course that reminded Brandon of a snake.
His dragon disliked that their destination was hidden by foliage.
In fact, the vegetation grew surprisingly dense on either side of the path, blocking the views of the surrounding houses. The hair prickled on the back of his neck, and he found himself agreeing with his dragon’s distrust of the situation.
He felt threatened. That’s what was the same as earlier that morning. His dragon had responded exactly like this right before the earthquake—right before the ceiling had fallen and could have killed Liz.
There was a risk or a danger lurking on this path. Did someone intend to mug Chen because he was a weak old man? Were they going to get jumped by some kid? Brandon scanned the shadows on either side, looking for trouble.
Chen shuffled his feet as they walked, nodding. “It is an old secret remedy,” he said, sounding more like his usual self. “The grandfather of my grandfather made it first and he taught me.”
“Your grandfather’s grandfather?” Brandon asked, thinking that Chen was getting confused. No human could live that long. “But what’s in it?”
Chen chuckled, and it was a surprisingly dark sound. “It is secret.”
“Can’t you tell me? One friend to another?” Brandon smiled when Chen glanced up, trying to look friendly and trustworthy.
“Dragon bones,” a guy contributed.
Brandon looked up with surprise. There had been no one on the path, but now there was a big, buff guy with a blond buzz cut who was blocking their way.
He had appeared without Brandon hearing him approach.
“Isn’t that right, Chen? You make it out of incinerated dragon shape shifters?” The guy winked at Brandon, and it wasn’t a friendly expression. “I’ll guess that you’re going to be the source of the new supply.”
“Fool!” Chen roared. There was no disputing the fact that he was shimmering blue now. He straightened and was nearly as tall as Brandon. Chen’s entire body was surrounded by a halo of bright, flickering blue light.
Brandon’s mouth fell open.
In the blink of an eye, Chen became a red dragon with gold scales and gold horns. Brandon was shocked. Chen reared back and breathed fire at the guy in the path. The plume of flame was long and vivid, and the fire licked the wooden porch of the house that had been behind the guy.
It missed the guy because he’d become a dragon of vivid yellow and taken flight.
Brandon thought the pair would fight each other, but the yellow dragon laughed. He thrashed his tail through the air and took a long, deep breath as he hovered overhead. “Mmm. I smell fresh mate,” he snarled, then disappeared as if he had never been.
He was going to target Liz!
“No!” Brandon had to fly to the defense of his mate. His dragon roared, compelling him to shift shape faster than he ever had before.
It didn’t matter, though. The red dragon that was Chen turned on him with a snarl and moved quicker than lightning.
By the time Brandon had shifted shape, Chen’s claws were already locked tightly around his neck. The other dragon squeezed, and his delight in the pain he caused was clear. Even in dragon form, Brandon couldn’t fight the other dragon’s deathly grip.
He tried.
He slashed at his opponent, still astonished that his friend would attack him. His talons dug into Chen’s shoulder and the blood ran black over his scales.
Brandon should have listened to Liz.
He struggled with new vigor, knowing his chances of ever listening to Liz again were fading fast. Chen was murmuring something, something that made Brandon’s dragon sleepy and ineffective. The spots where his scales were missing burned, as if touched by fire, sapping the strength from his body.
She was right about the binding spell, too.
Brandon felt like an idiot. He got in one good punch, landing a claw to Chen’s gut, and the Slayer’s grip loosened slightly.
Chen bared his teeth then, and Brandon heard the hiss of dragonsmoke.
He struggled, but the dragonsmoke snaked toward his gut. He screamed when it plunged into the wound like a knife and he roared as he felt it sucking his strength. Chen chuckled darkly and his claws tightened even more around Brandon’s throat. He squeezed the life out of Brandon as his spell—because it couldn’t be anything else—was commanding Brandon’s dragon to surrender. All Brandon could see were those eyes, eyes as malicious as Chen’s had been only once.
Chen had been lying to him.
And it was too late for Brandon to do anything about it. Only now he realized why Chen knew so much about dragons. He’d been manipulated. He’d distrusted his observations, he’d failed to listen to Liz, and he’d been surprised.
And now he would die for it.
Brandon saw the colors of the vegetation dim even as he thrashed against his opponent’s ferocious grip. Chen was not as feeble in dragon form as he was in human form—his ability to fight hard made Brandon wonder whether he was feeble at all.
The taunt in old-speak floated to Brandon’s ears, piercing the veil of pain. He recognized the yellow dragon’s voice. “If I have the mate and you have the Pyr, which one of us will he surrender to, Chen? Let’s find out.”
Chen roared with fury at the challenge, so he had heard it, too.
The yellow dragon would kill Liz; Brandon knew it.
He had to stop them both.
Terror gave him new strength and he whipped his tail against Chen, struggling with all his might. Chen snarled and his grip loosened slightly, giving Brandon time to hope.
Suddenly there was a dizzying flash. He had the sense of being lifted and of moving through a fog. He felt nauseated, then cold. Chen’s grip loosened and Brandon fell onto a hard floor.
For a moment he thought he was alone, but his dragon wasn’t convinced. Brandon looked again and saw a red lizard running across the floor. It slipped through the crack under the door. Brandon rose to his knees and saw an Asian woman in a tight dress marching down the path. She disappeared from sight.
Then he was alone.
Was she Chen, too?
Brandon lunged for the door and collided with a burning wall of ice. He fell back with a shout of pain and narrowed his eyes, only then discerning the dragonsmoke barrier.
He was a prisoner.
Chen’s prisoner.
And they were going to kill Liz.
Brandon closed his eyes, hating that his mistakes had led him to this place. He hadn’t wanted to have any involvement with the Pyr, but now he was in serious trouble, with no idea how to solve it. He had to start to make amends, and fast.
Liz’s life depended on it.
Brandon shouted in old-speak as clearly as he could. “Help me! Help my mate!”
There was no reply.
But then, it wasn’t as if he’d practiced his dragon skills. No, he’d spent time in the surf, honing those skills, determined to make himself a future that way.
Now neither he nor Liz had a future.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
Liz’s anger with Brandon lasted all the way down the middle of the island, until she got close to Honolulu. It was when the entry to the tunnel loomed before her that frustration abandoned her.
Because fear took its place.
Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as the entry to the tunnel came steadily closer. There hadn’t been any aftershocks for a while, she told herself. She’d driven through the mountain once already since the earthquake and everything had been (mostly) fine. It wasn’t that long of a tunnel, and she couldn’t think of anything worse happening than the mark appearing on her arm. The drive wouldn’t take long; then she could just stay in Kane‘ohe.
All her rationalizations sounded like exactly what they were.
She glanced at her watch and knew she didn’t have time to follow the coast around Diamond Head. She couldn’t be late. She owed it to Maureen to be there. She could do this.
She had to do this.
The entry to the tunnel loomed closer. Liz swallowed, told herself to remain calm, and drove into the tunnel as if everything was just fine.
The darkness closed around the car like a shroud. Her heart was pounding and her palms were damp. She refused to think about just how much mountain was over top of her. She refused to look at the passenger’s seat or acknowledge the prickling of that brand. She kept her gaze locked on the road and closed her ears.
Hear no evil.
But Liz didn’t hear the spirits. She smelled something burning instead.
Oh no. Not her test. Not here and now!
Light—orange light that crackled into flames—sparked on the passenger’s seat. Liz could smell the vinyl burning and hear the snap of the flames. Her right arm was getting singed, and from the corner of her eye, she could see brilliant, hot lava pooling on the floor.
Holy shit. Liz glanced right and the car swerved.
From the passenger’s seat, a woman of flame and smoke, a woman whose fiery garments made that lava pool on the floor, smiled back at her. She was all black and orange, all heat and shadow, and her eyes were dark with mystery.
Pele. Liz gripped the steering wheel in terror. She was being visited by a deity.
In a way, it was a relief to confront a goddess instead of the test of her powers.
She really had to make sure she didn’t tick Pele off.
“You are surprised,” Pele murmured, her voice dark and sensuous.
“And honored, my lady.”
The goddess chuckled. She arranged her robes, and sparks flicked toward the dashboard. “My presence reveals the importance of your role.”
“You honor me too much, my lady,” Liz said, keeping her manner deferential. “My skill is nothing compared to yours.”
“You are wrong,” Pele said sternly. “You are stronger than you know. Your gift is potent and it is needed to break the spell that awakens the earth.”
Liz swallowed. She didn’t dare to look directly at Pele, but she knew the goddess was speaking of the dark magic she had already sensed. “I gave my gift away, my lady.”
“You are no different from him,” Pele said. “You cannot change what you are or cast it away. You gave of your power, but it is still with you. It has slumbered like embers of the fire, awaiting the moment of need.”
Liz glanced at the goddess in her surprise.
Pele smiled, the raw power in her expression making Liz look back to the road. She could see a pinprick of light ahead and fixed her gaze on that. Pele’s words were low and hot, insistent and inescapable. “You have only to feed the fire to bring it to a blaze again. Make no mistake—this burden is yours, Firedaughter. You have been chosen. You can triumph or you can fail.”
“But my test—”
“Comes to you in this place, where only you can make the difference.” Pele flicked her robes again, sending an array of sparks into the darkness. “There is a certain elegance to it that reveals the hand of the greatest goddess of all. You must embrace the fire that is yours to command.”
“Fire kills,” Liz insisted, her nostrils as filled with the scent of the ashes that had been her mother as if she still stood on that hill. “Fire burns and destroys.”
Especially when she tried to command it.
“Fire purifies,” Pele insisted. “Fire is your weapon of choice. Fire sears and fire heals. You know this, Firedaughter. It is your legacy.”
“You don’t understand. My mother died because of me! I could die! My child could die!”
“So you would let the dragon die instead? This would make the life of your child better?”
Liz gasped in horror. “I left him. He should be safe….”
Pele shook her head. “Only you can break the spell that binds him.”
Brandon was going to die without her help? But how could she count on her powers again? And how could she be sure that using her powers at all wouldn’t increase the danger?
Pele chuckled under her breath. “Perhaps only he can ensure that you pass your test.”
What? How could that be?
With a thousand questions, Liz turned to the goddess, but Pele was gone as quickly as if she had never been there. The passenger’s seat was pristine, to Liz’s relief, and there was only a faint whiff of an extinguished flame in the car.
Not wanting more company, Liz accelerated, racing toward light and sanity and Kane‘ohe.
Her eyes widened when a rumble echoed beneath the car. She had time to hope it was an illusion before the road shook hard.
The car swerved into the next lane without Liz meaning to do so. Fortunately, there was no other car near her. The road cracked in a great fissure right ahead of her and she floored the accelerator, hoping to cross the chasm before it yawned too wide. She saw a tendril of steam rise out of the crack and feared the worst.
The car seemed to welcome the opportunity to show off. It accelerated like a racing car, leaping easily over the yawning crevasse in the road. Liz shot out of the other side of the tunnel just as the shaking became much worse.
In the rearview mirror, she could see burning orange light erupting from that crack in the road. Lava. A stream of brilliant sparks shot into the air, cars honked, and she heard collisions behind her. She raced down the side of the mountain, wanting only to get back to the Institute—and as far away from the erupting volcano as possible.
She heard the rumble of sliding rock and didn’t have to look to know what was happening. The dark magic had awakened the volcano. That’s what Pele had been warning her about.
But how was Liz going to stop it?
She drove down toward the parking lot like a wild woman, going even faster when she heard the avalanche slam into the road behind her. People were screaming. Houses were collapsing. Rock was rolling down to the sea. The avalanche was descending through the residential neighborhood with savage force. Liz rocketed down the winding road like a race-car driver, managing miraculously to stay just ahead of the tumbling tide of stone.
Liz got to the parking lot and squealed the tires as she parked in Maureen’s spot. The car was at a bit of an angle, but Liz didn’t care about precision parking. She saw the rising dust of the avalanche and wanted to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible.
Far back up the mountain, she could see lava spewing high, like a fireworks display of brilliant orange and red. There was a river of lava already moving down the side of the mountain, so hot that it moved comparatively quickly. She grabbed her purse, locked Maureen’s car, and pivoted to run to the dock.
Only to find a blond man with a chilly smile blocking her way. He took a deep, appreciative breath, as if he liked her perfume, and she couldn’t imagine how he could smell her from so far away.
“So,” he said softly, his voice filled with threat. “You’re the mate.”
The term he used told Liz that he must be another of the dragon shifters. His hungry expression gave her a clue that he wasn’t one of the good guys. Sirens were blaring and chaos had erupted behind her. No one was even going to notice if she screamed, or come to her help if she called.
The man smiled, as if enjoying that she’d realized the desperation of her situation. She had the sense that he’d been waiting, letting her fear build to its maximum point. She was reminded of a cat playing with a mouse, ensuring that the victim understood its plight before the inevitable end.
Liz wasn’t feeling like her demise was inevitable.
The man shimmered blue around his perimeter, flung his hands into the sky, and shifted shape. He became an enormous dragon the color of a yellow topaz, proving her suspicions true. It looked like his talons were made of gold, and his scales seemed to be edged in gold. He had an awful lot of very sharp teeth.
He took flight and breathed fire at Liz, his eyes shining with fury. For the first time, Liz’s legacy seemed like a gift. She could fight fire with fire.
Maybe only a Firedaughter could face down this Slayer and win.
Her son was going to survive and so would she.
With that thought, Liz felt the old power rise within her. The heat of her gift surged through her veins, responding to her need and her command, just as Pele had said it would.
When the dragon lunged toward her, claws extended, Liz didn’t bother to scream.
This Slayer was going to get more than he expected.
Liz raced toward the Slayer instead of away from him, making for the end of the dock. As she ran, she flung her purse strap over her shoulder so it hung across her body and left her hands free. She ducked beneath the airborne dragon and closed her eyes against his blast of flames. She was sure she felt his talons slide through her hair.
Only surprise had made him miss.
Liz knew that trick wouldn’t work again. She had to fight fire with fire. She recited the ancient words in her thoughts once, ensuring that she had the order and pronunciation right. It had been a long time, and there would be no second chances, but she remembered them perfectly.
She would speak no evil.
At the end of the dock, Liz pivoted and flung up her left hand. The dragon was closing fast, his eyes shining in anticipation of a nice, light snack.
She called to the power that was hers by right and flung up a wall of burning flame between herself and the dragon. The spell worked with such vigor and speed that Liz was astonished.
She was stronger than ever.
But there was no time to marvel at her feat.
She spun to dive into the bay. She heard the dragon roar in frustration, probably because he couldn’t stop in time to avoid the fire. When she broke the surface, she smelled something burning and hoped it was him.
Liz glanced back in time to see him circling the end of the dock. His scales were singed and smoldering, a thread of smoke rising from his burned hide. With obvious frustration, he slashed at the wooden hut on the end of the dock, then set it on fire by breathing a plume of flames at it. There must have been a tank of fuel stashed there, because the shack exploded, sending a tower of flame into the sky.
Then he turned to glare at her.
Liz swam for the island with all her might. He couldn’t burn her while she was in the water, but she murmured a protection spell all the same. She was a strong swimmer and the water was much warmer than it was in New England.
Coconut Island wasn’t far away.
She knew she could make it.
The ocean welled around her, its deep songs melding with her thoughts. She felt the power of the element of water and was dizzied by its influence on her. There was no buffer here—no concrete, no boat hull, no wet suit. She was surrounded by the lullaby of the water and caressed by it on every side. How had her mother dealt with so much energy? If she was going to survive, Liz had to focus and ignore her intuitive connection with the earth’s elements.
She swam hard, her body straining. She felt something brush against her leg and nearly panicked. It was a bad time to remember that Kane‘ohe Bay was a breeding ground for hammerhead sharks.
Only in the winter.
Which would include December.
Funny how knowing that the young sharks were harmless to humans didn’t slow her heartbeat much. Liz opened her eyes under the water and saw dozens of them, their dark shadows sliding around and beneath her.
They were juveniles, she told herself sternly. No more than two feet long.
And even adult hammerheads had very little taste for humans. She was safe.
Well, from the sharks.
Liz swam faster. The sharks brushed against her repeatedly, as if they needed to touch her, as if they recognized that she was a woman in connection with the planet. Liz could have done without the affection.
The dragon swooped low over her and breathed a long, slow stream of fire. It fried through the protection spell, and Liz knew she’d need more spell power to protect herself from this one’s evil intent. The flame scorched Liz’s back before she dove underwater. It was as if he were searing her on one side before roasting her thoroughly.
She was halfway to the island. She kept moving forward with powerful strokes, even underwater. The school of juvenile hammerheads swirled around her, dark shadows with gleaming eyes. She could hear them murmuring to each other.
Overhead, the shadow of the dragon disappeared. She lunged for the surface and gulped a deep breath, amazed at how much he had already increased the temperature of the water. He was turning in the sky over the island and coming back around for another attack. Liz swam with all her might, eyeing his position. She could see the lust in his eyes and the ferocious shine of his teeth. She saw him open his mouth to breathe fire again and swoop low. He moved fast.
Liz dove deep and kicked hard. The dark shadow of the dragon passed overhead, his fire making the water boil above her. The hammerhead sharks dove deeper into the bay, surrounding her in a dark gray swirl. Were they protecting her? Or isolating her? Liz knew what her mother would have said, but those teeth made her wonder.
Could dragons swim? Would he dive in after her next time and snatch her out of the ocean?
Liz kept swimming. She wasn’t at all sure how she’d evade the dragon once she got to the island.
Never mind how she’d get out of the ocean. It was too easy to imagine him compelling her to spend too long underwater, but she refused to panic at the prospect. She had to outsmart him, and that meant keeping calm. She should have looked to see if he was missing any scales.
That was when she realized she hadn’t seen his shadow pass overhead again. Where had he gone? Liz cautiously broke the surface and took a breath, daring to look around. She stayed low, wondering why the dragon would have abandoned his attack.
She quickly saw that he hadn’t had a choice. The yellow dragon was locked in combat with another dragon above and behind Liz, closer to the parking lot. The second dragon was a deep red, the red of Chinese lacquer. Each scale again looked as if it was edged in gold, his talons were gold, and he had golden horns. The two of them looked like jeweled treasures.
But they were pounding the crap out of each other, which worked for Liz in a big way.
The dragons locked claws and tumbled end over end through the sky. Their tails twined together and Liz understood that they were trying to overpower each other. Their teeth flashed as each snapped at the other, and their talons ripped into each other’s flesh. Liz saw more than one explosion of orange fire and a lot of blood flowing.
It was all black and it sizzled when it dropped into the ocean, emitting a plume of steam.
She remembered what Sloane had said and knew they were both Slayers.
They must be fighting over her. It was not good news to be on the Must Have list for two different Slayers. It had to be because of the firestorm.
Because of the baby. Liz’s hand curved over her belly protectively.
No matter what his intentions were, the new Slayer was giving her a chance to escape, and Liz was going to use it.
Liz swam the last distance to the island and pulled herself onto the dock. There was no one around, presumably because they were all still making repairs to the damaged equipment. She raised her hands and turned around in place, surrounding herself with a spiral of her mother’s favorite protection spell. It was resonant and powerful, a good spell to use in an emergency. It was also one that left the spellcaster exhausted.
Liz would take dead tired over plain old dead any day.
She finished the last flourish of the spell and felt its cocoon close around her. It would move with her, although it would fade in time. For the moment, she was as safe as she could be.
She took one last look at the fighting pair and saw the red one get slammed hard by the new arrival. He grabbed the yellow one by the neck and shoved his face into the ocean, as if he’d forcibly hold him underwater.
The yellow dragon thrashed, his powerful tail thumping his opponent. His wings beat. His claws tore. The red dragon held fast and breathed a stream of fire at his captive for good measure. The ocean boiled, the water turning black around the fighting pair.
Liz heard a roar of outrage.
And then the yellow dragon disappeared.
The red one hovered over the surface of the water, his dark wings beating with slow power. He flew back and forth, examining the water, then turned gracefully to look at her.
With that one look, Liz understood that he hadn’t been saving her—he’d been saving her for himself. He flew toward her with power and fury, his eyes shining with hatred and his talons extended.
It was a little bit hard to believe in the efficacy of an invisible spell when a dragon had her in his sights.
Liz spun around to run, not at all sure she could run fast enough.
“You ready to listen yet?”
The old-speak slid into Brandon’s thoughts, startling him as it always did. He stood up and looked out the windows of his prison, only to see Sloane standing in the path, almost exactly where Brandon had been attacked. The other Pyr had his arms folded across his chest and his expression was guarded.
Brandon knew he was lucky that the other Pyr had come to him at all.
“I’m sorry,” he replied in kind. “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
The Apothecary nodded and scanned the front of the building. “Serious dragonsmoke barrier here. I’ll guess that permissions are set against you.”
“Burns like acid.”
Sloane nodded. “From this side, too.” He flicked a look at Brandon. “Find anything interesting in the lair?”
Brandon gestured to the larger main room. “A spiral in sand, with two of my scales in the middle.” He frowned. “But I’ve given him three. I can’t find the last one.”
Sloane wasn’t listening anymore. He was walking back and forth, his expression intent. “Who else was here?”
“Some yellow Slayer. Blond guy. Blue eyes.”
Sloane exhaled. “I thought I’d caught a whiff of Jorge in town, but it was so fleeting.” He scanned the area, nodding in thought, then looked at the sky.
“I think they were going after Liz.”
Sloane gave Brandon a stern glance. “Bad plan to leave your mate undefended.”
Brandon exhaled with impatience. “Look, okay, I’ve messed up,” he said, his temper simmering. “But it would be better to help me than to lecture me. I know I was wrong. I need to fix it. I need to defend Liz!”
“You need the Pyr, and you need your own dragon nature, and until you admit that, there’s nothing I can do to help you,” Sloane said flatly.
To Brandon’s dismay, the Apothecary turned to walk away.
“All right!” Brandon shouted out loud. He pounded on the window to get Sloane’s attention and was relieved when the other Pyr turned to glance over his shoulder.
“Choose,” Sloane said softly, so softly that only Brandon could hear him.
He stared at the floor. He feared he was lost himself. But he had to believe in the promise of the firestorm, and he had to believe in the future. He looked back at Sloane and met the other Pyr’s gaze steadily. He answered in old-speak and used the formal form of address, knowing he was asking for a lot in dragon terms. “Please defend Liz and my son.”
Sloane surveyed him for a moment, then nodded. “I will do my best,” he replied in kind, then flung his hands into the air. There was a brilliant shimmer of blue as Sloane transformed to a sleek dragon. His scales were all the hues of tourmalines, shading from green to purple and back again over his length. His claws were gold and his scales were tipped in gold. He could have been a jeweled ornament, but he flew with grace and breathed fire. He gave Brandon one last look—as if to emphasize that his best might not be good enough—then took flight over the trees and disappeared.
Brandon looked around his prison, his frustration rising. He had to get free. He had to help Liz. He couldn’t get through the dragonsmoke barrier alone, but Chen had moved him through it.
Brandon looked at the elaborately worked spiral of sand on the floor and had an idea. He deliberately walked across the spiral, dragging his feet and cutting a path through the carefully stacked sand furrows. He felt electricity around his feet and looked down to see red sparks flying from the sand each place he disturbed it.
He started to kick it, making it fly into the air on every side. He didn’t understand the spell or its working, but he’d trash this spiral.
If nothing else, it would annoy Chen and maybe prompt his return.
That might give Brandon a chance.